They've come from Japan, Russia and Germany. Australia, Israel and Serbia. And, of course, there are the allies, not exclusively Native American or indigenous, who've flocked here from all corners of the US.

Together they stand in opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline, a $3.7 billion investment to move 470,000 barrels of domestic crude oil a day through four states. They're fighting against what they see as corporate greed, an environmental threat and an assault on sacred land.

Demonstrating is their proud daily work.

The Standing Rock Sioux call this reservation home, and many are not on the frontlines of this months-long, and at times violent, protest. With no end in sight, what does it mean to them? And are they even united in their support?

Read More

The answer to that last question: Not even close.

Wishing they'd go home

No one makes this clearer than Robert Fool Bear Sr., 54, district chairman of Cannon Ball. The town he runs, estimated population of 840, is just a few miles from the action. It's so close that, given the faceoffs with law enforcement, you have to pass through a police checkpoint to reach it.

It's about time people heard from folks like him, he says.

Robert Fool Bear Sr.

Fool Bear has had it with the protesters. He says that more than two years ago, when members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe could have attended hearings to make their concerns known, they didn't care. Now, suddenly, the crowds are out of control, and he fears it's just a matter of time before someone gets seriously hurt.

Go down to the camps, he says, and you won't see many Standing Rock Sioux.

"It irks me. People are here from all over the world," he says. "If they could come from other planets, I think they would."

The presence of all these people has become a downright nuisance to his community, he says. Given the roadblocks, residents of Cannon Ball are often forced to go more than 40 miles out of their way.

Native Americans march to the site of a sacred burial ground that was disturbed by bulldozers building the Dakota Access Pipeline on September 4, 2016 near Cannon Ball, North Dakota.

Not long ago, he found three teenage girls from Ontario, Canada, camped out inside his storage shed. A white woman from Spokane, Washington, came to see him for help, saying she'd come here with nothing and her car had broken down. When he was at the casino recently, someone approached him about two young kids who were on their own because their parents had been arrested.

The situation has dissolved to madness, he says, and he wishes Dave Archambault II, the Standing Rock Sioux chairman, would speak up.

And he's not alone in feeling this way. Two women who listen in as he talks keep nodding in agreement, but they don't want to speak.

Just look at a recent vote in the community for further proof that Fool Bear's not the only naysayer. When protest organizers presented a request to build a new winter camp in Cannon Ball earlier this month, his community shot it down.

Of the 88 people who voted, he says 66 were against the camp, less than 10 were for it and the rest remained undecided.

A Standing Rock Sioux flag flies over a protest encampment near Cannon Ball, North Dakota.

Even though Fool Bear is against the protests, that doesn't mean he's not preparing to help people out, too. He anticipates opening the community gymnasium for people without beds come winter, and a growing pile of sleeping bags and blankets sits in his office.

Those protesters from Arizona, Georgia and California won't know what hit them when the cold rushes in, he says.

Activists embrace after hearing the news at the camp near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, on December 4. Cannon Ball has been the site of demonstrations against the Dakota Access Pipeline, a $3.7 billion project that would cross four states and change the landscape of the US crude oil supply. The Standing Rock Sioux tribe said the pipeline would affect its drinking-water supply and destroy its sacred sites.

Hide Caption

2 of 32

Photos:North Dakota pipeline protests

An activist rides down from a ridge on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation on December 4.

Hide Caption

3 of 32

Photos:North Dakota pipeline protests

Activists celebrate at Oceti Sakowin Camp on December 4.

Hide Caption

4 of 32

Photos:North Dakota pipeline protests

Dan Nanamkin of the Colville Nez Perce tribe drums a traditional song by the Cannonball River in Cannon Ball, North Dakota, on Thursday, December 1.

Hide Caption

5 of 32

Photos:North Dakota pipeline protests

A procession makes its way down to the Cannonball River to take part in a Native American water ceremony on December 1.

Hide Caption

6 of 32

Photos:North Dakota pipeline protests

Snow covers the camp on Wednesday, November 30.

Hide Caption

7 of 32

Photos:North Dakota pipeline protests

A person walks through snow and wind on Tuesday, November 29.

Hide Caption

8 of 32

Photos:North Dakota pipeline protests

People against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline speak at a news conference near Cannon Ball on Saturday, November 26.

Hide Caption

9 of 32

Photos:North Dakota pipeline protests

A sculpture stands at an encampment where protesters of the pipeline have been gathered for months.

Hide Caption

10 of 32

Photos:North Dakota pipeline protests

People protest along Highway 1806 as they walk past a sprawling encampment on Thursday, November 24.

Hide Caption

11 of 32

Photos:North Dakota pipeline protests

A man stands along Highway 1806 on November 24.

Hide Caption

12 of 32

Photos:North Dakota pipeline protests

In this image provided by the Morton County Sheriff's Department, law enforcement and protesters clash near the pipeline site on Sunday, November 20.

Hide Caption

13 of 32

Photos:North Dakota pipeline protests

Tonya Stands recovers after being pepper-sprayed by police on Wednesday, November 2. Stands was pepper-sprayed after swimming across a creek with other protesters hoping to build a new camp to block construction.

Hide Caption

14 of 32

Photos:North Dakota pipeline protests

Dozens of protesters wade in cold creek waters as they confront local police on November 2.

Hide Caption

15 of 32

Photos:North Dakota pipeline protests

Tribe members make their way back to their camp on Saturday, October 29.

Hide Caption

16 of 32

Photos:North Dakota pipeline protests

Cousins Jessica and Michelle Decoteau take part in a protest outside the North Dakota state capitol in Bismarck on October 29.

Hide Caption

17 of 32

Photos:North Dakota pipeline protests

The burned hulks of heavy trucks sit on Highway 1806 on Friday, October 28, near a spot where protesters were evicted a day earlier.

Hide Caption

18 of 32

Photos:North Dakota pipeline protests

Pipeline protesters sit in a prayer circle as a line of law enforcement officers make their way across the camp to relocate the protesters a few miles south on Thursday, October 27. Protesters had camped on private property.

Hide Caption

19 of 32

Photos:North Dakota pipeline protests

A protester is arrested as law enforcement surrounds the camp on October 27.

Hide Caption

20 of 32

Photos:North Dakota pipeline protests

Tires burn as armed soldiers and law enforcement officers stand in formation to force protesters off the private land in Morton County.

Hide Caption

21 of 32

Photos:North Dakota pipeline protests

A protester shows where he was hit by a bean-bag round fired by officers trying to force protesters off the private land.

Hide Caption

22 of 32

Photos:North Dakota pipeline protests

JR American Horse leads a march to the pipeline site on Friday, September 9.

Hide Caption

23 of 32

Photos:North Dakota pipeline protests

Native Americans head to a rally at the state Capitol in Denver on Thursday, September 8. They were showing their support for members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe in North Dakota.

Hide Caption

24 of 32

Photos:North Dakota pipeline protests

People hang a sign near what they say was sacred burial ground disturbed by bulldozers in Cannon Ball.

Hide Caption

25 of 32

Photos:North Dakota pipeline protests

Marlo Langdeau of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe joins hundreds of Native Americans for a march near Cannon Ball on Sunday, September 4.

Hide Caption

26 of 32

Photos:North Dakota pipeline protests

Protesters march on September 4.

Hide Caption

27 of 32

Photos:North Dakota pipeline protests

Native Americans march to the site of a sacred burial ground on September 4.

Hide Caption

28 of 32

Photos:North Dakota pipeline protests

Native Americans ride with raised fists to the sacred burial ground on September 4.

Hide Caption

29 of 32

Photos:North Dakota pipeline protests

The Missouri River is seen beyond an encampment near Cannon Ball, where hundreds of people gathered to join the protest on September 4.

Hide Caption

30 of 32

Photos:North Dakota pipeline protests

Flags of Native American tribes from across the United States and Canada line the entrance to a protest encampment on Saturday, September 3.

Hide Caption

31 of 32

Photos:North Dakota pipeline protests

Phil Little Thunder Sr. attends an evening gathering at an encampment on September 3.

Hide Caption

32 of 32

A fight worth having

The tribal headquarters sits in the Sioux County seat of Fort Yates, nearly 30 miles south of the protests. Driving into the small town, population less than 200, a hand-painted sign announces, "Oil & water don't mix!"

To hear it from those hanging out in Club Diamond Z, a bar and deli, Standing Rock Sioux support of the protests is universal. They can't fathom how anyone would disagree.

Artist Roger Valandra, 61, says he travels north to join the protests once a week. A proud Vietnam Vet, he says the freedom to peacefully demonstrate was something he fought for, just like his nieces and nephews who've served in Iraq.

To feel suppressed by the nation he's served offends him. He's baffled by the flood of law enforcement from nearby states and North Dakota counties he's never even heard of.

"Don't they have enough to do?" he wonders.

Any violence, he says, was provoked by them. Valandra and those around him at the bar begin to rattle off the offenses, many of which they heard about through social media. They talk about tear gas, rubber bullets, sound cannons and concussion grenades. They speak about the elder who was beaten with a club, the horse that had to be put down, the boy whose wrist was broken. (CNN could not confirm these stories.)

Roger Valandra

The crackdown also maddens Valandra's 25-year-old daughter, Elaina, who works here at "the Z," as locals call it. She grew up believing racism didn't exist; not anymore.

"The Bundys were armed to the teeth, and they're acquitted," she says.

She pulls up a Facebook post, showing a photo of a number scrawled on a man's arm after he was arrested Thursday and words likening the treatment to what Nazis once did. Online comments and the stereotyping of her people leave her stunned. She wants people to know this battle isn't about race.

"It's about water, not just native people," she says. "We don't get another Earth."

Her father doesn't question what will happen to the reservation's water if the pipeline goes in. Just look at the track record of oil companies, he says, and understand that the problem will grow.

"When that water gets contaminated, it's going to affect everyone from here all the way to the Gulf of Mexico," he says.

He calls the pipeline a "moneyline" for billionaires who'll never live on the land their desecrating. It's just "greed at play," he says, in a world where nothing is ever enough.

JUST WATCHED

Police remove pipeline protesters

MUST WATCH

Police remove pipeline protesters01:20

A shrug of indifference

Ten miles west of the protests, a man who doesn't want to be named, for fear of retribution, admits he looks forward to the pipeline. It'll mean fewer trucks barreling down these rural highways and fewer trains flying down the tracks.

Back at Cannon Ball, however, Carl Bruce, 52, isn't afraid to say his piece. For this Standing Rock Sioux who has lived his life here, the pipeline doesn't matter. If it breaks, he says he'd just work around it.

Carl Bruce

"Oh hell," he says. "I can move north of the break and get my water over there."

The pipeline is coming, like it or not, he says. The world may watch this ongoing battle and believe it's a unifying force for his people, but Bruce just shrugs his shoulders and walks away.